A hidden primary master

Answered Thursday, November 08, 2001

> Hi, I'am new to this game but trying to understand my situation is that I want to take over
> my DNS from an ISP . What is the best way to accomplish this without losing email for
> a day, and how do I set up my DNS server so it can be hidden by using another ISP.
> What do I need to change in the bind files to accomplish this also.

I'm not sure what you mean by hiding your name server by using another
ISP. Can you explain?

> Sorry Cricket, by this I mean and by all means correct me if I am wrong that it is possible
> to be the primary dns and have an ISP who is willing to be your secondary yet only publish,
> I guess in your zone file the ISP's FQDN and address. Is this how it works ??

Yes, that's a very common setup. And it's straightforward to configure.

1. You set up your name server as the primary master for the zone, say strategic.ca.
2. In strategic.ca's zone data file, you list only your ISP's name servers in the NS records.
   
3. You contact your ISP and have them set up their name servers as slaves for
   strategic.ca.
   
4. You have your registrar change the delegation for strategic.ca to point only to your
   ISP's name servers.

That's really it. Now you can change the strategic.ca zone's data when you want and
your ISP's name servers will transfer if from your primary master, but other name servers
following delegation from the ca name servers to the strategic.ca name servers will only
query your ISP's name servers.

cricket